“Everyone in that bar is going to remember us,” I enthused, once we were safely back in the room I had rented for this enterprise.

“I imagine that’s true,” said Clarke, sarcastically.

“I don’t mean they’ll remember us,” I clarified. “I mean they’ll remember us.” I indicated me and Colt.

“Did you take a blow to the head?” asked Clarke.

“They – The Brotherhood types – will remember me and Colt as a couple.” I couldn’t help grinning as I spoke. “We’ve established ourselves in their eyes as an inter-species couple of the worst kind. And one that’s shown up a bunch of their supporters. Don’t you think they’re going to want a bit of vengeance?”

“You’re deliberately angering the people who are trying to kill you?” asked Jackson.

“I guess that’s one way of looking at it.”

Clarke rolled his eyes. “Well, I don’t see any way this could possibly go wrong. Why did we take this job?”

“We needed money,” put in Colt, unhelpfully.

“This is a good plan.” I was fired up about the whole thing. “This is going to help us find The Brotherhood sympathizers in the MacKenzie territory.”

“That’s not our job,” snapped Clarke. “Our job is to keep you safe, not help you put yourself in worse danger than ever.”

“Well, this is where I’m going to be,” I returned. “And this is what I’m going to be doing. So the best way for you to protect me is probably to help me. And if you don’t want to do that, then I suggest you just quit now.”

“And what will you do after you identify these sympathizers?” asked Jackson.

I came to a halt. One plan was enough for one evening, I hadn’t really thought any further ahead than that.

“You guys could follow them?” suggested Colt.

“What?” Clarke sounded increasingly exasperated.

“Well, if me and Miss Hokkai create a bit of a scene in a bar and get The Brotherhood types all riled up, then they’re bound to want to report that to their base. If you and Jackson follow them then they could lead you right to The Brotherhood headquarters in the MacKenzie territory. If there is any evidence of the MacKenzie Pack’s involvement with The Brotherhood, then that’s where it’ll be.”

“That’s a great idea.” I was practically bouncing off the walls with enthusiasm by this point.

“Thanks.” Colt was getting caught up in my energy.

“Damn it, Colt.” Clarke was less keen.

“What?” Colt threw up his hands. “How long do you want to play bodyguard for? The quicker we get this sorted out, the quicker we can get paid and head home. So, do you want to wait for a bunch of investigators with no leads or do you want to solve this ourselves?”

Clarke shook his head. “I don’t know what you’ve been drinking but it’s time to share. Tell him, will you, Jackson.”

Jackson was looking thoughtful.

Clarke snorted. “Don’t tell me you’re buying this? If she gets her clock cleaned then Hokkai Jack is going to…”

“Don’t tell me you’re scared of Hokkai Jack,” sneered Colt.

“I’m not scared of him but nor do I want to die. And I don’t want to live my life with one eye over my shoulder looking out for One-Eyed Jack.”

“I don’t know if we should do it,” Jackson finally spoke. “But I know that these people aren’t going to give up just because we’re protecting Miss Hokkai.”

“For God’s sake, call me Bailey.” Last night he nailed me on the back seat of a car, it was probably okay to be on first name terms.

“If they keep attacking her as they have been then I’m sure we can take them,” Jackson continued. “But pretty soon they’re going to realize that she’s got proper protection and they’ll step things up. Are you going to taste her food every meal to make sure it’s not poisoned? Check every drink? Open every letter? Make sure every vehicle she gets into doesn’t have a bomb under it? The longer this goes on the worse it’s going to get. Plus, unless we chain her to the bed, I don’t think Miss Hokkai…”

“Bailey.”

“…is going to stop trying.”

Clarke was clearly weakening but still tried to make his argument. “One-Eyed Jack has got investigators of his own.”

“Investigating what?” asked Jackson. “What have they got to go on? As long as The Brotherhood keep their heads down then they’re safe. We have something those investigators don’t have.”

“What?” asked Clarke.

“Bait,” I replied. “You have me.”

Jackson nodded. “I don’t like it, and I know that One-Eyed Jack wouldn’t approve and would skin us alive if he found out. But this is the best way to flush them out. And if we can do that then we can maybe get this whole affair ended before it starts.”

“And,” I butted in, “once again; I’m going to keep trying whether you help me or not, so you might as well help me.”

Clarke looked at Jackson. “Are we sure chaining her up isn’t an option?”

Proud though I had been of my disguise, it felt good to get glammed up again the following night for my date with Colt. Clarke, very grumblingly, made the trip back into Hokkai territory to pick up my little red dress – which was really the only attire for this expedition – and some matching accessories. When I walked out in full party mode that evening, I was pleased to note the looks on the guys’ faces. Though he instantly tried to suppress it, I saw a heat in Jackson’s eyes that I hadn’t seen since he was on top of me in the back of his car. I wasn’t about to go there again but it was nice to know that the desire was still fierce, however hard he tried to hide it or ignore it. Colt looked me up and down with an almost wonder in his bright, blue eyes.

“You look great.” He sounded surprised, but I thought it was not so much surprise that I looked good, and more surprise at his own reaction to how good I looked.

Even Clarke took the time for a longer look than he otherwise would, his eyes travelling up my long, slim legs and seeming to like what they saw. He turned away quickly when he realized I had seen him looking.

“Ready to go?” asked Colt. Though I had impressed myself with how good I looked that evening, I had to say that Colt might have even exceeded me. Frankly, Colt didn’t have to do much to look amazing; his blonde hair and blue eyes shone, as did his wide, dazzling smile, just creasing at the corners. His features walked that fine line between pretty boy and handsome, with all the youthful sheen of the former, and the rugged maturity of the latter – a perfect blend of boyish energy and masculine grit. He wore a jet black shirt, the sleeves rolled up to display the thick muscles of his forearms, and with the top three buttons left undone, partly to display the upper slopes of his broad chest, partly because that chest prevented him from doing them up. The shirt was just the right side of too small – it didn’t look like he was deliberately wearing a size too small, but he filled it to capacity so the seams seemed to stretch with every move he made. But for me, it was the dark blue pants that made the ensemble. Chosen with the same care as the shirt, they were just a shade too small, hugging the impressive trunks of Colt’s legs. From the front, even a casual observer could not miss the bulge that might have been padding but almost certainly wasn’t, from the back, the view made my mouth run dry. I had always thought Colt’s ass was a work of art, but outlined in a tight pair of pants, it became a masterpiece that deserved to be on display in the Louvre. As we headed out of the apartment and down the stairs, I found myself unconsciously hanging back, just so I could feast my eyes on the firm, twin ovals of his butt cheeks. I’d always appreciated a man with a nice ass, but this was becoming an obsession.

“You coming?” asked Colt, glancing back at me.

I blushed. I very nearly was.

Going to the same bar as last night would have been stupid, and after a bit of discussion we’d decided that, in fact, going to werewolf bars in general was probably a bad idea.

“It would look suspicious,” Jackson had said. “Like we were trying to cause a scene.”

“But we are,” I had pointed out.

“But we don’t want them to know that.”

This is why werewolves don’t make plans – we just have a very direct way of seeing things, and all this subterfuge just gave me a headache. Still, Jackson was right – back home, I went to human bars to pick up men and I still got wolves trying to kill me. Hopefully it would be the same here. What a crazy thing to be hoping for.

The place we chose was a proper dive bar with loud music and a dance floor in the basement. Colt bought the drinks automatically, which I found incredibly sweet – men were always buying me drinks, but only once I had flirted with them and only because they were hoping to get sex out of it. It was nice to have someone treat me well, not because he wanted me, but because it was the right thing to do, because he thought that was how I should be treated. For all his youthful vigor, there was an almost old world charm to Colt – he was a gentleman.

“See anyone?” I asked, as we drank, having chosen a nice prominent table to sit at.

“I guess the point is to be seen rather than to see.”

I nodded – again, werewolves prefer a more direct route but I could learn. “So, we’re supposed to be on a date; tell me about yourself.”

Colt laughed – even with the music pounding it was a lovely sound. “What would you like to know?”

“What do you really think of werewolves?” It was a question that I suppose I had been wondering about since I met the guys, and Colt was the only one I felt even a little confident in asking. I knew that all Wolf Takers hated all wolves in the same way that I knew all British people played cricket and all French people are rude – these broad stereotypes are seldom completely true.

Colt swirled his drink around in his glass, staring at the liquid as if he might find an answer to my question in there. “What I think about wolves… What I think about wolves is evolving by the minute.”

“Getting better or getting worse?”

He laughed again. “Stuff like that; I never would have thought that werewolves had a sense of humor.”

“Really? I’d have said the same about Wolf Takers. You always struck me as such a humorless bunch of stick-up-your-asses.”

Colt nodded. “I can see how you would think that from the outside.”

“Well, I guess I can see how you’d think that a species that kills as a matter of course might not be a barrel of laughs either. I guess if death is a big part of your life then you’ve got to see the funny side.”

“I guess that goes for Wolf Takers, too.”

“We’re more alike than we thought.”

We clinked glasses, drank and ordered another round.

“Honestly,” Colt went on. “Most Wolf Takers do hate wolves, without ever having met one. It’s how we’re raised. I guess I was always at the weak end of that spectrum. Never been that good at hating things without a reason. I always wanted to meet a werewolf so I could see what they were like. I told my parents that when I was a kid and got a hell of a leathering for it.”

I remembered Jackson saying something similar. “Do Wolf Takers always beat their children?”

Colt shrugged. “When they’re disobedient. We’re raised as soldiers – in battle, if you disobey, then you get people killed, so they beat that out of us early on. I’d have thought werewolves were pretty strict parents, too.”

I shook my head. “We kind of encourage disobedience. We equate it with strength. Although we’re pack animals, wolves have to have a degree of independence to be strong. We’re expected to turn on our parents at some point.”

Colt nodded. “I’m not sure either of us has the best deal there.”

Another clink, drink and reorder.

“Was I the first werewolf you met, then? Or my dad.”

“I’d met a few others.”

“To fight?”

He nodded, cagey about this area.

“To kill?”

A firm shake of the head. “Remember; Wolf Takers obey. We follow the rules and that includes the law. We’re brought up being taught how to fight and kill wolves but we never meet them in our communities, so when we’re old enough, we visit the city, go to a few bars and…”

“Start fights?”

He nodded.

“Came in useful last night,” I grinned.

“How about you? Are we the first Wolf Takers you ever met?”

“Yeah.”

“Are we what you expected?”

“Not even close.”

“How so?”

“Well,” I began, “you’re stronger and faster than I expected. I’d heard Wolf Takers were good but I always thought; good enough to take wolves? No way. They’re still humans. Now, I’m…” I laughed. “I sort of really want to know if I could take you.”

“You think you could?”

I nodded. “I’m not saying it wouldn’t be close.”

We drank again.

“I thought I’d hate Wolf Takers.” I probably wouldn’t have kept talking were it not for the alcohol. “But you guys - for all that you believe some screwy stuff about wolves – you’re decent. That’s hard to hate. You’re also way cuter than I would have pictured Wolf Takers.” I shouldn’t have said that last bit. We were trying to make this look like a date and we were succeeding, but… I’d already crossed the line with Jackson, I didn’t want to let my guard down again.

It was hard to say what went through Colt’s mind when I called him ‘cute’, but it didn’t seem to be bad news.

“I wonder what my dad would say if he knew I was having a drink with a werewolf.”

“He’d be taking off his belt again.”

“Damn right.”

I drew patterns in the spilled drink on the table with my finger. “Imagine what he’d say if you went dancing with a wolf.”

I looked up and found Colt’s startlingly blue eyes on me, twinkling with excitement.

“Well, if we want to really sell the date…”